Systems Thinking for Changemakers at Ashoka Future Forum

To put system thinking techniques into the hands of changemakers, Climate Interactive Co-Director Beth Sawin will be joining David Castro of I-LEAD Inc. to lead a workshop at the Ashoka Future Forum. This event is pulling together 400 top leaders in social innovation, business entrepreneurship, philanthropy and media to wrestle with the biggest problems and share insights on the solutions.

Here is Beth and David’s tantalizing workshop description:

Archimedes, one of the earliest systems thinkers, famously promised, “give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” In their passion for change, leaders and changemakers are constantly searching for that long lever and leverage point, deeply aware that addressing system complexity often marks the difference between success and failure. We may be searching for creative leverage points that yield new results within existing systems, or we may be engaged in ambitious efforts to re-engineer entire systems. Our work with systems often relies only on our intuition, a capacity that tends to fail more frequently in the face of mounting complexity. The rigorous study of systems promises to bring critical system elements into strategic sharp relief, thereby offering the potential for breakthrough strategies and innovations. This workshop will introduce the theory and practice of Systems Thinking, helping participants explore its relevance to changemaking. Participants will practice using its tools applied to current work settings and ongoing projects. The specific tools and concepts considered will include stocks, flows, links, and balancing and reinforcing dynamics. The long lever and its mysterious fulcrum await you. Take hold and move the world.

If you agree that this workshop sounds tantalizing, but you aren’t one of Ashoka’s select 400 participants, fear not. Climate Interactive is gearing up to offer the content of this workshop and much more through an online learning program later this year. We’re still many months from launching this effort, but you can sign up and be the first to know when it is ready.

Mothers Talk Climate Using Climate Bathtub Analogy

In the Boston area, as in other places, parents are coming together to discuss how they can address climate change and discuss the issue with their children in a constructive way. University of Massachusetts Lowell Professor, Juliette Rooney Varga, a mom herself, was on hand at one of these events explaining how carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, just like a bathtub accumulates water when the faucet is on but the drain is plugged or doesn’t drain as fast as the water coming in. We use this analogy frequently here at Climate Interactive and have a simple simulation to help people understand it for themselves. Read below for the full story about the event Juliette was a part of.

Conversation on climate change at Somerville’s Brown School – Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

By Delia Marshall, May 04, 2013 @ 10:46 AM

Somerville Journal

Somerville — For many parents of young children in Somerville, the idea of climate change inspires fear, loathing, and silence. Wanting to inspire some hope, connection, and constructive conversation on this topic, Brown School PTA president MaryLou Carey-Sturniolo asked fellow Somerville moms Juliette Rooney-Varga and Eliza Johnston to help her host an April 3 event called “Parenting in a Time of Climate Change.” Johnston, the mother of a toddler, serves on the city’s Commission on Energy Use and Climate Change. Rooney-Varga has three children at the Brown School and directs the Climate Change Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

We’re hiring: Climate & Digital Media Intern

-Updated May 15, 2013-

Climate Interactive seeks an Intern to work 20 hours a week (with the possibility of more) assisting with media, administrative, and research tasks. This is a telecommuting position, as CI has no central office (its 7 person staff is spread across VT, NH, MA, SC, and NC, with its fiscal home in Washington DC). The Intern will work as a contractor, and the internship will run for 12 months with a 30 day review period, to ensure an adequate fit for both Climate Interactive and the Intern. Compensation for the internship will be $15/hour, and the Intern will provide his/her computer equipment and software.

Responsibilities are listed below. The top three characteristics required are 1) self-motivation and ability to telecommute effectively, 2) web communication skills, and 3) productivity and attention to detail with administrative tasks.

MIT Professor: We Ended the Slave Trade, We Can End Fossil Fuel Use

In this interview Climate Interactive team member and MIT Professor John Sterman describes how slavery was once an integral source of energy for our society and yet we realized how wrong it was and stopped.  John is optimistic that we will come to the same conclusions about the damaging energy sources we are dependent on today.

He explains his research, which shows that people are often so overwhelmed by the scope of climate change and the feeling they can’t do anything about it that they become cognitively dissonant. He explains that we can take steps to help people reorient their thinking about climate change, like reminding people that throughout history people have been able to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges, like ending slavery.

Check out the video interview from the Australian School of Business above or visit their website for the full transcript or audio.

Two Myths: Let’s Level off Emissions & Reverse Climate Change

Suggesting that we can reverse climate change or that it’ll be okay because we’re leveling off emissions is thinking that doesn’t reflect the real dynamics of our world. CO2 lasts in the atmosphere for lifetimes, meaning we are already locked in to some amount of climate change. If we were to just level off our emissions and leave it at that, we would still be adding far more CO2 annually to the atmosphere than we can cycle back down to Earth without contributing to climate change.

These are just two angles on some of the misaligned, but generally well-intentioned thinking that one can run across in the daily energy and climate news. Below are two recent examples, both of which pop-up in articles from people trying to find a foothold to defend the widespread exploitation of the reserves of natural gas and oil that have been opened up by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in a warming world — a tough argument to pull off.

Myth 1: We can reverse climate change. This is from New York Times Op-ed columnist Joe Nocera last Friday:

A reduction of carbon emissions from Chinese power plants would do far more to help reverse climate change than — dare I say it? — blocking the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Students Showcase our Interactive Climate Tools to Enthusiastic Crowds

At the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual conference in Boston, thousands got the opportunity to see a demonstration of some of our latest tools and some new interactive exercises to help people understand climate change. The exhibit was put together and led by University of Massachusetts Lowell professor Juliette Rooney-Varga and her students as part of the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative to showcase how engaging learning about climate change can be. Below the UMass Lowell news office recounts their experience showing off these tools.

Kids, Parents Given Introduction to Climate Change Science, Solutions
By Edwin L. Aguirre, 03/13/2013

Students experienced firsthand the important task of communicating climate change to the general public during the “Family Science Days” event held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston in February.

“It was a great learning experience — the amount of science we were able to convey to people was awesome,” said biology senior Justin Conchieri. “I believe we really did inform a lot of people and changed a lot of minds. I even think we made people want to reduce their carbon footprint.”

“It was a joy to see our students educating the more than 3,600 attendees about climate change science and solutions,” said biology Assoc. Prof. Juliette Rooney-Varga, who is director of UMass Lowell’s Climate Change Initiative. “They were fantastic!”

Joining Conchieri were fellow biology seniors Cameron Jenkins, Heather Merhi, Nathan Manalo, Chika Iloh and Itoro Inoyo and biology sophomore Jared Nease.

“I was really surprised by the number of people who kept coming to the booth to get more information,” said Conchieri. “It was literally nonstop talking to people and a lot of times there would be a large crowd listening to us.”

March 12th: Climate Interactive at Oxford discussing future energy scenarios

Climate Interactive Co-Directors Beth Sawin and Drew Jones will be giving an interactive presentation tomorrow, March 12th, at Oxford Universtiy’s Saïd Business School on our global energy model En-ROADS.

 

The event:

‘En-ROADS: Interactive Experiments with a Policy-Maker-Oriented Global Energy and Climate Simulator’

Tuesday 12th March 2013, 12.30 -14.00

Seminar Room 14, Saïd Business School

Event abstract:

The Earth’s climate and society’s energy infrastructure are each complex dynamical systems driven by multiple feedback processes, accumulations, time delays and nonlinearities, but research shows poor understanding of these processes is widespread, even among highly educated people with strong technical backgrounds.

Existing climate and energy models are opaque to policymakers and too slow to be effective either in the fast-paced context of policymaking or as learning environments to help improve people’s understanding of climate dynamics.

In this interactive session we will together run experiments in En-ROADS (Energy-Rapid Overview And Decision Support), a transparent, intuitive policy simulation model developed by Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan that provides policymakers, negotiators, educators, businesses, the media, and the public with the ability to explore, for themselves, the likely consequences of energy, GDP, land use, and GHG emissions policies. The model runs on an ordinary laptop in a fraction of a second, offers an intuitive interface and has been carefully grounded in the best available science. We describe the need for such tools, the structure of the model, and calibration to climate data and state of the art general circulation models.

En-ROADS is an extension of C-ROADS, the climate simulator that is being used by officials and policymakers in key UNFCCC parties, including the United States, China and the United Nations.

Climate Interactive is a U.S.-based not-for-profit organization that helps people see what works to address climate change and related issues like energy, water, food, and disaster risk reduction. Climate Interactive employs system dynamics modeling, which was invented at MIT Sloan in the 1950s.

Sawin and Jones are co-founders and co-directors of Climate Interactive – www.climateinteractive.org. Both hold their degrees from Dartmouth College and MIT.

Thanks to the event sponsors:
Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford Martin School, and the Saïd Business School

New Version of C-Learn Released: Now Embeddable

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new version of the C-Learn simulation for the web. 

C-Learn enables you to explore the level of emission reductions it will take to address climate change across three different groups of countries. This updated version is built on a new platform, so those familiar with the old version of C-Learn will notice slight changes to the interface. The Forio Simulate platform that we have switched to allows you to embed the simulation on an existing website and create a free account to save your scenarios for later.

We’ve also improved the ability to use C-Learn for running the World Climate Exercise and added a new feature that calculates how annual emission reductions equate to the percent change above or below 2005 levels of CO2 in 2050.

Climate Interactive on the Inaugural Speech

In reaction to Obama’s strong words on climate change in his inaugural address yesterday, Stephanie Pappas of LiveScience followed up yesterday’s coverage of Obama and climate change with additional commentary from Beth Sawin and Travis Franck of Climate Interactive.

Obama Takes Stand on Climate in Inaugural Speech

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

Date: 21 January 2013

President Barack Obama discussed the need to act on climate change in his inauguration address, highlighting previously stated intentions to make the issue a priority in his second term.

In his speech, Obama tied failure to respond to climate change with a betrayal of future generations.

“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms,” he said today (Jan. 21). “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.”

Obama went on to cast green technology in a positive light, arguing that America “must claim its promise.” The message resonated with climate scientists and environmental groups.

4 More Years: Obama and the Challenge of our Time

Today as crowds are gathered on the national mall and millions tune in to hear the President’s second inaugural address, those of us knee-deep in climate science are wondering what role climate change will play in his second term. The science blog LiveScience talked to Beth Sawin and Travis Franck here at Climate Interactive for a bit of context on the climate policy arena and where we could be headed in the next four years. 

Will Climate Change Get Cold Shoulder in Obama’s 2nd Term?

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

Date: 20 January 2013

As President Barack Obama prepares to take the oath of office for the second time, he has promised that climate change will be a priority in his second term. The chances that significant climate action will actually happen, however, remain slim, policy experts say.

“I always have hope, but it is sometimes hard to see how real progress, substantial progress, is going to be made with the fact that the Congress is so polarized,” said Travis Franck, a policy analyst for nongovernmental organization Climate Interactive.